It was that kind of night on the North Side. The Athletics walked into Wrigley, smacked Shota Imanaga around, and turned a winnable Wednesday into a slog where the loudest cheer of the night came on a solo homer in a four-run deficit. PCA did his job. Nobody else really did.
The lone bright spot: a Pete Crow-Armstrong moonshot with a 110.1 MPH exit velo readout off A's starter J.T. Ginn.
That homer made it 4-1 in the 6th, which tells you everything about how the rest of the game went. Imanaga, who's supposed to be the steady hand in this rotation, couldn't keep the A's bats quiet. Oakland was bat-flipping its way around the basepaths and basically treating Wrigley like a batting cage, tacking on another run to push it to 5-1 and rubbing it in while they did it.
A's hitters celebrating as they pile on Imanaga and stretch the lead to 5-1.
It wasn't just the pitching either. PCA, who's been the best story in Cubs baseball this year, also gave one back in the field — a center field misplay that let Shea Langeliers come around to score and helped Oakland build the early lead in the first place. The defense has been a calling card for this team. On Wednesday it wasn't.
Mock 'E-8' scoring on the Cubs outfield miscue that let Langeliers come around to score.
Ian Happ tried to drag the Cubs back into it late and the bleachers got a brief jolt out of it, but down multiple runs to an A's team that was visibly feeling itself, it never really felt like it was tipping back. PCA's 110 was the headline, the defense was the lowlight, and the Cubs got run off their own field. On to the next one.